i know money is tight all around, but if anyone is looking to donate a few $$ to a cause, read on....

i am in no way affiliated with this project, this isint self promotion. i started playing guitar young. i knew john since i was a kid. he was 16-17 working in the local music store when i was a 12-13 yo kid taking guitar lessons. im now 40 and john has, about 5 or so years ago now (probably a lot more... where does the time go?), opened up his own little mom and pop music store, night and weekends, after his "real job". he a great guy, good friend, and top notch store owner. you can go in, hang out, bs, play all the guitars you want, and go home. no pressure to buy anything, hes in it for the love of the business, not driven by money.

3 years ago a neighbor of his (his house and store are in a little village of about 30 houses) who was in his 80's and suffering from stage 4 cancer came in the store and handed him some book. they were vintage 50's-60's gibson and fender "learn to play the guitar" books. he said he always wanted to learn but never got around to it. john told him to look around the store and asked him what he liked. he found a guitar that appealed to him, and john told him "its yours". he offered him free lessons, and before he died about a year and a half later, he finally got to fulfill his dream of learning to play the guitar. john got the guitar back from the family and auctioned it off, giving all of the money from it to the family to help with the funeral costs. he also gives away a guitar every christmas to a kid that wants to play and cant afford one.

now that youve read all of that, is any of it pertinent? no, not really. but i hate go fund me and usually detest those who would beg for money, but this campaign is truly legitimate. he probably would be upset that i posted what i just did, but i want ppl who can donate to know, he is the real deal.

any way... hes looking to expand his program. his new venture is to give a FREE guitar and 3 months of FREE lessons. the catch is you sign a contract to keep up the free lessons for 3 months. after that the guitar is yours, with the hopes to continue paying for lessons after the 3 months (which, btw, the money goes to his teacher, not him). hes paying for the first 2 guitars and sets of lessons and has started a go fund me to try to raise money to pay his teacher and pay for more guitars (at dealer cost) to give away.

id love to be able to donate the full $1000 to hit his goal, but thats a bit over my head, so im just trying to forward this awesome cause by spreading the word, and hoping there are a few ppl out there with an extra $1, $5, or even $10 extra that they wouldnt mind using to help someone join the hobby, and perhaps fulfill a lifelong dream that would otherwise be unobtainable. but either way, donating or not, if youve made it this far, thank you for your attention. and heres the link to the go fund me page, and if your like me, and want to help the cause but arent rich, feel free to help by spreading this gfm page

I love the story. I like the initiative. I really do. Please go on! Don't get me wrong at any time, but..

What I do really have a problem with is, and not only in this case, is that free is not free. If I make a pedal and give it to say, our forummember Bajaman, as a token of appreciation, Baja can say he got the pedal for free. However, the pedal was never free. I paid for it. The costs of the components, the time to build it, as well as the shipping to the other side of the globe.

And so, in a similar manner, these lessons are not "free". They are just being paid for by someone else. And that concept is not that unique. In many, many counties primary and secondary schooling (and sometimes even further!) works like that. People live in a country. They work and pay taxes. Tax money is used to fund education. In some but less countries this concept is expanded even further. People again pay taxes, tax money is used to subsidize art education like, say, music schools.

But never was this education free. It's paid for. By the tax payer in above example. And the way that tax money is pumped around, enabling the teacher to buy his food, perhaps an occasional laptop, a TV or gym subcription, a vist to the zoo and all that is called... economy! The initiative of this thread is just a "crowd funding" type variant of that.

Free is the sun on your face. Free is.... in some countries only unfortunately...your voting right. The rest is being paid for by someone, somewhere at some time.

Or, as scifi writer Robert Heinlein so often repeated, There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

i agree 100% with everything you said, but im having trouble seeing the connection.

yes, in the us we have "free" lol (that you pay back in taxes fr the rest of your life) elementary and high school education, but (except for limited examples of band, which is a dying subject in schools today) there is no music lesssons. these lessons are not part of a government program. in the us, for the most part you have to find a music store and hope that they have a teacher on their payroll if you want to take guitar lessons. i suppose in todays world you could probably go on craigs list and find someone to come teach you guitar too, but you not getting away with any free lessons over here unless you have a relative that knows how to play.

so yes, just as you stated, this is john, the shop owners project, his guy tht does teaching at his shop is not donating his time. that is the point behind the go fund me campaign. to help raise money to expand his program and extend the offer to any one in need, not the the first ones to get there. and actually, if you read the updates on the gfm page, he was already aproached by the mother of a special needs kid that lives no where near the store. he called around to find a reputable teacher in their area and hooked them up. so, as some other cynics have pondered, its not just a ploy to get his teacher more students.